


The art of adapting - part 2

by MissSlothy



Series: The art of adapting [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 23:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSlothy/pseuds/MissSlothy
Summary: Learning to adapt to life changing events doesn't have an end date - for Steve and Danny it's still a work in progress.The first part of this series was set at the end of 6.25, and it was written before season 7 aired.  Part two picks up in season 8, at the end of the episode when Steve meets Eddie.Warning: I haven't seen season 8, just some spoilers, so this doesn't follow cannon.  Un-betaed.  UK English.





	The art of adapting - part 2

Steve parks his truck outside his house and turns the engine off. Eddie's in the passenger seat beside him, curled in a tight ball of misery, his tail tucked under his back paws.

He reaches over to strokes Eddie's head, running his hand over the soft ears and down his back. He's relieved when Eddie makes eye contact, his eyebrows twitching up. For a while there he really hadn't thought he'd be able to move Eddie away from the graveside. He’d been on the verge of calling Danny for help when Eddie had surprised him by nuzzling his fingers before slowly getting to his paws. Head hung low he'd followed Steve to the truck. Since then there'd been no reaction.

The poor animal looks desolate, like everything he knows has been taken away from, his world turned upside down.

"I know, buddy." Steve strokes his head. "I know. But you're gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay."

Steve’s lost count of the number of times people have said that to him. Or the number of times he's said something similar to other people. But the look of doubt on Eddie's face is achingly familiar. He pulls him closer, tucking him against the warmth of his leg. "You'll see."

By the time they get in the house it's getting dark and the lights are on, a welcoming sight after a long, hard day. As Steve opens the front door the smell of cooking wafts out. His mouth is watering within seconds; standing beside him, Eddie licks his lips. When he'd left he’d been preparing a cold chicken salad for dinner. The aroma filling his house suggests someone has been busy in his kitchen while he’s been gone. 

"Danny?"

"Damnit!" Danny jerks back from the stove. The metal spatula he’d been holding hits the floor with a loud clatter. The look he throws back over his shoulder at Steve is tinged with guilt. "Warn a guy would you?"

Steve advances on him, sniffing the air appreciatively. Behind him he can hear Eddie's claws tapping across the tiled floor. "Whatcha doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm cooking dinner."

"I've got that covered--"

"It was salad, Steve. Salad." Danny turns and leans around and past him, his eyebrows raised. "How are we gonna survive on that huh, buddy?" 

Steve turns to follow his gaze. Eddie's sat right behind him, his tail swishing across the kitchen floor. "You're cooking specially for the dog?"

"Like you weren't?" Danny lifts a warning finger as Steve scoffs at his words. "You have fish in your fridge. You love fish. You are a goddamn fish. But you didn't cook fish. You cooked chicken." Danny stands back, arms crossed, his chin raised. “With salad.”

The word ‘salad’ hangs between them and Steve tells himself not to laugh. For a moment he’s back on a beach with Danny, Lynn and Melissa. It was one of the most surreal evenings of his life (and he’s done some pretty surreal things in his life). Danny’s still wearing his most stern expression; his eyes though are brimming with laughter.

“Okay, agreed, no salad,” Steve concedes with a chuckle. “So what are you cooking?”

The question’s rhetorical: he can see chicken and gravy bubbling in a large pot on the stove. His rice cooker is switched on as well. But Danny loves to talk about cooking. So Steve pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and makes himself comfortable, tucking his feet in so Eddie can lay down between them. 

Cooking is Danny’s way of coping when he’s worried about those he loves. He draws them in close and feeds them, keeping them safe at least for a little while. Steve lets him because he loves his cooking – and because he’s often the reason for the worrying. So he lets the words and retorts flow between them, like a long rally at a tennis match. He could up the game, rile Danny some and his friend would take the bait, happy to play along. But Danny’s smiling, his eyes crinkled up at the corners as he leans down to talk to Eddie about something. Just sitting and listening to him is easy. His tired body starts to relax. 

“Hey. Don’t fall asleep.”

Steve blinks back to consciousness. His brain takes a few seconds to realise the rice cooker is beeping, signalling dinner’s ready. Danny’s getting plates from the other side of the kitchen. Job done he turns his attention to Steve: his eyebrows draw together in a frown. 

“You okay?”

Danny’s voice is full of concern. Steve’s stomach clenches with guilt. “I’m good,” he insists as he waits for Eddie to scramble out of the way so he can get up. His body’s seized up while he’s been dozing, getting out of the chair is taking more effort than it should. 

He gets the bowl he's got out for Eddie and spoons in the chicken and gravy. His stomach rumbles appreciatively, it does smell really good. "Get Eddie's meds out of the cupboard," he calls over his shoulder, adding rice as well. 

Steve knows he doesn't have to say which cupboard. Danny's very familiar with his home. He hears the door open and everything goes quiet. And that's when he remembers what else he's got stored in there and he curses under his breath.

The cupboard is where he keeps all his meds, the one he’d set up when he’d first returned home after the transplant. Inside the door, at the bottom, is a calendar showing the current month. At the top is the calendar he’d used during the first six weeks of his recovery, with both his and Danny’s handwriting scrawled across the page. The edges are starting to curl slightly, he’s had to use extra tape to keep it attached to the door.

His meds are lined up on the bottom shelf. Eddie’s are stored to one side. On the middle shelf is his stack of medical literature – most of the information leaflets Danny gave him originally are gone, replaced with journals on the latest transplant research. 

Reaching past Danny, he takes out Eddie's meds. His heart sinks when Danny stops him from closing the door. Danny's worried look has morphed into one of intense concern. Steve recognises it instantly: it’s the expression Danny had been wearing in the first few weeks after the transplant. Steve hates that look so much. 

He busies himself mixing Eddie's meds into his food. Eddie looks really interested for the first time that evening, attacking the food enthusiastically after an initial cautious sniff. Steve pats him, grateful that at least one thing is going right tonight. Taking a deep breath, he turns back to face his friend.

Danny's flicking through one of the medical journals. He gives Steve a brief glance then carries on reading. "These are new."

Steve crosses his arms, leaning against the kitchen bench. "It's the latest research. Kidney and liver transplants. They're looking at the long-term side effects of the anti-rejection meds. Weight-gain, bloo--"

"There's side-effects?"

"They're meds, Danny. Of course there might be side-effects." Steve takes a deep breath, steadies himself. Despite all Danny's questions about his liver and his insane need to gate-crash his hospital appointments they still don't really talk about this. About the day to day reality of being a transplant patient. It's like an intricate dance of avoidance they've both become very good at.

"But you're worried, right? You must be worried otherwise you wouldn't have this st--"

Steve shrugs his question away. "I'm not worried." He knows instantly he's said the wrong thing. He can see it in Danny's face, the way it hardens, lips clamping tight in a tense line.

"Don't lie to me. Not about this."

Steve looks away, unable to face the anger in Danny's eyes. "Okay, I'm worried," he confesses, his words tumbling out. He's worried about dying, about leaving Danny and the kids behind. It keeps him awake at night. "But transplant patients can have long healthy lives. And I'm gonna be one of them, Danny. That's why I read that stuff, okay? Not because I think something is going to go wrong but because I want it to go right."

"Steve--"

"Don't give me that look. Please." 

Danny looks away, back at the cupboard, his eyes fixed on the old calendar. Steve follows his gaze. The calendar's a record of the first six months of his recovery, of the people that helped him get back on his feet. Steve keeps it there as a reminder in those dark times in the middle of the night how far he's come, how much he's got to live for.

He wishes he knew how to tell Danny that.

Danny stuffs his hands in his pockets and pulls out his car keys. "I'm calling it a night." 

"What?" Steve slams the cupboard door shut, hurrying to catch Danny as he disappears into the hallway. The next magazine down in the pile had an article on radiation poisoning so he's not sorry Danny's walked away. The last thing he wants him to do is leave though, not when he's so worried about him. 

“What about dinner? You cooked and—“

Danny stops so suddenly Steve almost barrels into him. Danny’s breathing hard, looking everywhere but at Steve. He lets out a shuddering breath, then another one. It’s obvious he’s struggling to keep his emotions in check. 

"I can't, alright?" he admits finally, his voice so low that Steve struggles to hear him. "I think about that day in the plane. Maybe I could have done something different, you know? Could I have spotted the chopper sooner? What if I'd stopped you flying that plane at—“.

Steve reaches out then checks himself. Danny’s body language is screaming ‘don’t touch’. "Don't do that to yourself."

"I look at that stuff in there and that's...” Danny shakes his head, finally looking Steve in the eye. The desolation Steve sees there hits him like a blow to the chest. “That's your life now." 

"No it's not." Steve’s not sure he’s spoken out loud; Danny’s still looking at him like a broken toy he can’t fix. That’s not an acceptable situation. He needs happy, cooking Danny back. “Okay, I gotta show you something,” he announces, grabbing Danny by the shoulders and steering him towards the dining room before he can protest. It says something for Danny’s state of mind that he lets himself be manhandled. He doesn’t even complain when Steve sits him down at the dining table.

Steve grabs all the paperwork he needs from his desk and starts spreading it out on the dining table. He’d been planning to work on it for a few more weeks yet, to be sure he’d got his figures right. But there’s no way he’s letting Danny go until they’ve talked about this – and from the way Danny’s got one eye on the nearest escape route, Steve reckons he’s only got a minute or two to get his message across.

He watches as Danny starts reading. It’s taking all his self-control not to jump in and explain everything. He pulls out a chair and sits down to wait. 

Danny gives the paperwork only a cursory glance, his eyes still full of worry, his lips turned down in an unhappy line. Steve’s on the verge of conceding defeat when Danny leans forward, his eyes narrowing as he scans the paperwork again. “What is this?” 

“It’s our business plan. For the restaurant,” he adds as Danny blinks at him, then blinks again, before returning his attention to the paperwork. “I figure we’ve got enough space for 40 seats,” Steve blurts out, nerves making it impossible for him to keep quiet any longer. “We open for lunch and dinner. That’s three turns at lunch, four maybe five for dinner. Capacity would be 360 covers per day but let’s assume sixty percent capacity, at least for the first six months. We still gotta agree the menu but if the average spend per cover is $30 that’s—“ 

“Whoa!” 

“What?” Steve stops just long enough to catch his breath. “$30 too much? You wanna go less? We can go less—“

Danny touches his arm, a hint of a smile finally appearing. “This is a lot to take in, babe. Let me read the rest and…” His eyes widen as he reads further down the page. “Is this a second restaurant?”

Steve confirms with a nod. “Year five. We’ll need an expansion plan.”

Danny rubs his hands across his face. “An expansion plan. Are you insane?”

“Probably?” Steve hazards. This is an old, old argument and he doesn’t want to get derailed now. The next bit is important. He needs Danny to get this. “This is my life now,” he explains, stabbing at the paperwork with his finger as he leans in closer. “This is the life you gave me. We're going to open a restaurant and we're going to drive each other nuts and it's gonna be fun. But I need you to enjoy it too, buddy. You're good at cooking. You love cooking. It makes you happy. Can't we just focus on that without worrying about all these other things?"

For a horrible moment Steve thinks he’s blown it. Danny’s shaking his head, one hand wrapped across his eyes. Then he raises his head and his eyes are still shadowed but the smile he’s wearing is warm with affection. The knot of worry in Steve’s chest unfurls a little bit. “You really want to do this, huh?”

“The restaurant? Yeah.” Steve doesn’t bother to hide how much the question surprises him. He thought he’d made that abundantly clear.

Danny considers that for a moment, chewing his bottom lip. Exhaling loudly he pushes himself to his feet. “Then I guess you’re going to have to explain this insane master plan,” he announces, gripping Steve’s shoulder as he gets up. “After we’ve eaten,” he adds, waving a finger under Steve’s nose. “The gravy is really good.”

Danny’s heading for the kitchen before Steve can say anything more. Steve lets him go. They’ve both done enough talking for one night. He knows they agree on that.

His mind, however, hasn’t received that message: it insists on running back through the conversation. Steve frowns as he comes to a conclusion: it’s not one that sits well with him right now. Danny’s always the first one to take any blame for something even when there’s no blame to take. Everything for Danny is about protecting those he loves. Ever since the plane crash Danny’s been using all of his energy to try and protect Steve because he feels guilty for something he had no control over. 

Music drifts out of the kitchen. Danny had requisitioned the radio in his kitchen the first time he’d cooked for the whole team. Steve’s got no idea which station it’s on, he doesn’t bother changing it anymore. Danny starts singing – more humming than actual words – and the volume on the radio goes up, filling the house with life and sound.

Steve nods to himself as he makes a decision. It’s time to take some of the weight from Danny’s shoulders, to help him break that cycle of constant blame. Pulling all the paperwork towards him, he starts working through the figures again. 

Running a restaurant is always going to be risky but he’s determined to be around to help Danny make this one a success. 

The End


End file.
